Leonid Sobolev

Leonid Sobolev (9 June 1844-13 October 1913) was Prime Minister of Bulgaria from 5 July 1882 to 19 September 1883, succeeding Johann Casimir Ehrnrooth and preceding Dragan Tsankov. He was an Imperial Russian Army general before being appointed to head Prince Alexander of Battenberg's government.

Biography
Leonid Sobolev was born in the Toropetsky District of the Russian Empire on 9 June 1844, and he rapidly rose through the ranks of the Imperial Russian Army. He supported Russia's expansionist foreign policy, seeing it as Russia's destiny to expel the Ottoman Turks from Europe and gain access to the Mediterranean. He was given command of a Russian army in Central Asia with the goal of preventing the United Kingdom from intervening in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. In 1882, Sobolev and fellow Russian general Alexander von Kaulbars were given senior roles in Prince Alexander of Battenberg's Bulgarian government, with Kaulbars being appointed War Minister and Sobolev being appointed Prime Minister. Sobolev allied himself with the Conservative Party, reducing the size of the National Assembly and restricting voting rights to the wealthy and educated, all but eliminating the Liberal Party. However, Sobolev's aristocratic manner and his overt attempts to bribe politicians with sweets angered the Conservatives, as did the continued presence of Russian dragoons in the country. He succeeded in deposing Prime Minister Konstantin Stoilov, who was an enemy of the Russian occupiers, only for his successor Dragan Tsankov to unite the anti-Russian politicians of the country and force Sobolev to resign. Sobolev and Kaulbars then left the country, and Sobolev died in 1913.